CDZ Read this article and tell us we don't need the death penalty...

[TheProgressivePatriot]

As usual, you are quick to state what you DON'T believe in, but slow to explain what you DO believe in. What is YOUR concept of justice?

I have been very clear about that. The fact that you are not paying attention is not my problem.

 

[HenryBHough]

Idiot!

Cost of death penalty vs life in prison
"The additional cost of confining an inmate to death row, as compared to the maximum security prisons where those sentenced to life without possibility of parole ordinarily serve their sentences, is $90,000 per year per inmate. With California's current death row population of 670, that accounts for $63.3 million annually.".
Why does the death penalty cost more than life sentence in ...
www.answers.com/Q/Why_does_the_death_penalty_cost_more_than_life_sentence_in_prison

What part of "executed" do you find so challenging.

The "ed" ending means the individual has been put to death. Death as in dead. Dead as a fart.

Who would have guessed that a liberal indoctrination (in lieu of education) didn't include sufficient grammar to comprehend the past tense?

 

[TheProgressivePatriot]

P.S. Your assertion that life imprisonment is worse than death is ridiculous. Why do defendants engage in endless death penalty appeals if this is true?

It is instinctual to try to save yourself. That does not change the fact t that their life will be hell.

 

[Dogmaphobe]

The annual cost of housing, feeding, clothing, providing medical care for an executed criminal is $0.00/year.

Any questions?

Idiot!

Cost of death penalty vs life in prison
"The additional cost of confining an inmate to death row, as compared to the maximum security prisons where those sentenced to life without possibility of parole ordinarily serve their sentences, is $90,000 per year per inmate. With California's current death row population of 670, that accounts for $63.3 million annually.".
Why does the death penalty cost more than life sentence in ...
www.answers.com/Q/Why_does_the_death_penalty_cost_more_than_life_sentence_in_prison

You made a statement that there is no difference between killing and murder, and now you call somebody ELSE an idiot!?


Oh, that's rich!

 

[Picaro]

For the sake of discussion...

Since penalties are basically a state issue and my state allows juries sentencing options of 'death, or life without parole' with the judge having the final say - my vote goes to 'life without parole'...which actually is a death sentence and serves the purpose of protecting society from the monsters. Doing Time in Florida Prisons (where a life sentence for murder means life). If that were not the case I might re-think my position.

I am pro-life - be it the unborn or the criminal, for very different reasons.

The death penalty triggers an automatic appeal at tax payer expense. Being kept on death row is more expensive than in the general population. More importantly - the state should not be in the business, in the name of The People, of taking something they cannot give back...nor to cause other innocent families to suffer the same agony the perpetrator caused the family of his victim.

That said, in the heat of the moment could I take a life when protecting the lives of others or my own? - no doubt. Go figure...guess that makes me a hypocrite after all



.

Your view is consistent with Christians; Chuck Colson had the same view, and hoped to 'save' them before they died, hence opposed the death penalty.

 

[Leo123]

It it were mandatory for everyone to carry a firearm, these pieces of human debris would be taken care of on the spot when they attempt their heinous crimes.

 

[TheProgressivePatriot]

The annual cost of housing, feeding, clothing, providing medical care for an executed criminal is $0.00/year.

Any questions?

Idiot!

Cost of death penalty vs life in prison
"The additional cost of confining an inmate to death row, as compared to the maximum security prisons where those sentenced to life without possibility of parole ordinarily serve their sentences, is $90,000 per year per inmate. With California's current death row population of 670, that accounts for $63.3 million annually.".
Why does the death penalty cost more than life sentence in ...
www.answers.com/Q/Why_does_the_death_penalty_cost_more_than_life_sentence_in_prison

You made a statement that there is no difference between killing and murder, and now you call somebody ELSE an idiot!?


Oh, that's rich!

 

[Lucy Hamilton]

I just found this article on criminals who were spared the death penalty, who then went on to rape and murder again and again...

This is why I support the death penalty.....it makes sure that no other innocent victims are created by foolish mercy of unaffected bureaucrats...

Mcduff is just one of the monsters covered in the story, and the victims seem endless...

Of Junkie Justices and Evolving Indecency - American Greatness

Fort Worth, Texas, 1966: Teenagers Mark Dunnam, Robert Brand, and Edna Sullivan were hanging out one evening at a neighborhood ballfield when Kenneth McDuff approached them with gun drawn. He robbed them, then forced them into the trunk of their car. “They got a good look at my face. I’ll have to kill them,” he told Roy Dale Green, a friend who was tagging along with him. He drove his victims out into the country, killed the boys by shooting them in the face, then raped the girl, had his buddy rape her, raped her again, and finally threw her down and pressed a broomstick against her throat until her neck broke. His accomplice, horrified and remorseful, walked into a police station and ratted him out the next day..............

Austin, Texas, 1991: Colleen Reed, a young accountant, was hosing down her car one night at a self-service car wash when Kenneth McDuff lunged into her wash bay and dragged her to his car in the next bay over . . .


Wait a minute! Is that the same Kenneth McDuff who killed those kids in 1966?
------

“Don’t Be Like Pontius Pilate”

We now rejoin Kenneth McDuff and Colleen Reed. Saved from the electric chair by the Supreme Court, and granted parole because of a federal judge’s order to ease prison crowding, McDuff killed Reed five days after Christmas 1991. Her bones weren’t found until 1998; McDuff was convicted of her murder on the testimony of Alva Hank Worley, like Roy Green in 1966 a compliant accomplice, who was out cruising Austin with McDuff that night.

Worley had a child of his own, a girl of 14, and when detectives looking for McDuff questioned him and appealed to his paternal feelings, Worley broke down. He actually started screaming. The distraught man unburdened himself, telling how Reed cried, “Please, not me,” when McDuff grabbed her, how they took turns raping her on the way out of town, and how McDuff asked to borrow a shovel as he dropped Worley off at his house, saying, “I’m going to use her up.”

A few weeks after that, McDuff abducted Melissa Ann Northrup, a 22-year-old pregnant mother of two, from the Waco convenience store where they both worked. Her body was found two months later in a gravel pit near Dallas. This case got McDuff on “America’s Most Wanted,” which led to his arrest and trial in both the Northrup and Reed deaths.

During his trial in Waco, McDuff’s defense attorneys urged jurors not to be like Pontius Pilate, who “caved in to public demand” and sent Jesus to the cross. The jury, unimpressed, returned McDuff to Death Row. In 1998, he finally paid the price, more than 30 years after he first shed innocent blood. His execution closed the books on more than a dozen rape-murders committed while he was on parole.

NOBODY should give a CRAP what is done to these monsters, they should be immediately and automatically executed on the FIRST crime.

I have never heard of Kenneth McDuff until this thread, but like with all these terrible incidents my IMMEDIATE thought was to get to know something about the INNOCENT VICTIMS because it's ONLY the innocent victims I am bothered about.

^^^^ Kenneth McDuff's first known victims Mark Dunnam aged 15 years in age, Robert Brand aged 17 years in age, and Edna Sullivan age 16 years in age, Dunnam and Brand both shot in the head, Sullivan repeatedly raped, partially strangled and then a broomstick pressed against her throat breaking her neck.

This waste of human skin should have been put into the electric chair and executed for the above heinous crimes in 1965.

But he was put back on the street so he could rape and murder others and he did. The Justices who put this monster back on the street are as GUILTY as Kenneth McDuff, they share a big role and also the responsibility for his subsequent murders of innocent peoples, they have blood on their own hands. Kenneth McDuff was finally executed on November 17 1998 THIRTY TWO YEARS LATER than he SHOULD have been executed.

He was indicted FINALLY on one count of the capital murder in 1992 of Melissa Northrup who was pregnant at the time, so he should have and I think now in America he would have been indicted also on the murder of her unborn child. Kenneth McDuff showed NO REMORSE for ANY of his heinous crimes that dated back to 1965.

"Melissa Northrup, a 22-year-old store clerk at a Waco Quik-pak (the same store that McDuff had worked in at one point), who was pregnant when she went missing from the store. The kidnapper also took $250 from the cash register. McDuff was a suspect because he had been seen in the vicinity of the Quik-pak at the time of Northrup's disappearance. During the investigation before the body was found, a college friend of McDuff's told police officers that he had attempted to enlist his help in robbing the store. Northrup died on March 1, 1992, and a fisherman found her body on April 26."

Kenneth McDuff - Wikipedia

Free to Kill

 

[Rando Caucasian]

I just found this article on criminals who were spared the death penalty, who then went on to rape and murder again and again...

This is why I support the death penalty.....it makes sure that no other innocent victims are created by foolish mercy of unaffected bureaucrats...

Mcduff is just one of the monsters covered in the story, and the victims seem endless...

Of Junkie Justices and Evolving Indecency - American Greatness

Fort Worth, Texas, 1966: Teenagers Mark Dunnam, Robert Brand, and Edna Sullivan were hanging out one evening at a neighborhood ballfield when Kenneth McDuff approached them with gun drawn. He robbed them, then forced them into the trunk of their car. “They got a good look at my face. I’ll have to kill them,” he told Roy Dale Green, a friend who was tagging along with him. He drove his victims out into the country, killed the boys by shooting them in the face, then raped the girl, had his buddy rape her, raped her again, and finally threw her down and pressed a broomstick against her throat until her neck broke. His accomplice, horrified and remorseful, walked into a police station and ratted him out the next day..............

Austin, Texas, 1991: Colleen Reed, a young accountant, was hosing down her car one night at a self-service car wash when Kenneth McDuff lunged into her wash bay and dragged her to his car in the next bay over . . .


Wait a minute! Is that the same Kenneth McDuff who killed those kids in 1966?
------

“Don’t Be Like Pontius Pilate”

We now rejoin Kenneth McDuff and Colleen Reed. Saved from the electric chair by the Supreme Court, and granted parole because of a federal judge’s order to ease prison crowding, McDuff killed Reed five days after Christmas 1991. Her bones weren’t found until 1998; McDuff was convicted of her murder on the testimony of Alva Hank Worley, like Roy Green in 1966 a compliant accomplice, who was out cruising Austin with McDuff that night.

Worley had a child of his own, a girl of 14, and when detectives looking for McDuff questioned him and appealed to his paternal feelings, Worley broke down. He actually started screaming. The distraught man unburdened himself, telling how Reed cried, “Please, not me,” when McDuff grabbed her, how they took turns raping her on the way out of town, and how McDuff asked to borrow a shovel as he dropped Worley off at his house, saying, “I’m going to use her up.”

A few weeks after that, McDuff abducted Melissa Ann Northrup, a 22-year-old pregnant mother of two, from the Waco convenience store where they both worked. Her body was found two months later in a gravel pit near Dallas. This case got McDuff on “America’s Most Wanted,” which led to his arrest and trial in both the Northrup and Reed deaths.

During his trial in Waco, McDuff’s defense attorneys urged jurors not to be like Pontius Pilate, who “caved in to public demand” and sent Jesus to the cross. The jury, unimpressed, returned McDuff to Death Row. In 1998, he finally paid the price, more than 30 years after he first shed innocent blood. His execution closed the books on more than a dozen rape-murders committed while he was on parole.

I just found this article on criminals who were spared the death penalty, who then went on to rape and murder again and again...

This is why I support the death penalty.....it makes sure that no other innocent victims are created by foolish mercy of unaffected bureaucrats...

Mcduff is just one of the monsters covered in the story, and the victims seem endless...

Of Junkie Justices and Evolving Indecency - American Greatness

Fort Worth, Texas, 1966: Teenagers Mark Dunnam, Robert Brand, and Edna Sullivan were hanging out one evening at a neighborhood ballfield when Kenneth McDuff approached them with gun drawn. He robbed them, then forced them into the trunk of their car. “They got a good look at my face. I’ll have to kill them,” he told Roy Dale Green, a friend who was tagging along with him. He drove his victims out into the country, killed the boys by shooting them in the face, then raped the girl, had his buddy rape her, raped her again, and finally threw her down and pressed a broomstick against her throat until her neck broke. His accomplice, horrified and remorseful, walked into a police station and ratted him out the next day..............

Austin, Texas, 1991: Colleen Reed, a young accountant, was hosing down her car one night at a self-service car wash when Kenneth McDuff lunged into her wash bay and dragged her to his car in the next bay over . . .


Wait a minute! Is that the same Kenneth McDuff who killed those kids in 1966?
------

“Don’t Be Like Pontius Pilate”

We now rejoin Kenneth McDuff and Colleen Reed. Saved from the electric chair by the Supreme Court, and granted parole because of a federal judge’s order to ease prison crowding, McDuff killed Reed five days after Christmas 1991. Her bones weren’t found until 1998; McDuff was convicted of her murder on the testimony of Alva Hank Worley, like Roy Green in 1966 a compliant accomplice, who was out cruising Austin with McDuff that night.

Worley had a child of his own, a girl of 14, and when detectives looking for McDuff questioned him and appealed to his paternal feelings, Worley broke down. He actually started screaming. The distraught man unburdened himself, telling how Reed cried, “Please, not me,” when McDuff grabbed her, how they took turns raping her on the way out of town, and how McDuff asked to borrow a shovel as he dropped Worley off at his house, saying, “I’m going to use her up.”

A few weeks after that, McDuff abducted Melissa Ann Northrup, a 22-year-old pregnant mother of two, from the Waco convenience store where they both worked. Her body was found two months later in a gravel pit near Dallas. This case got McDuff on “America’s Most Wanted,” which led to his arrest and trial in both the Northrup and Reed deaths.

During his trial in Waco, McDuff’s defense attorneys urged jurors not to be like Pontius Pilate, who “caved in to public demand” and sent Jesus to the cross. The jury, unimpressed, returned McDuff to Death Row. In 1998, he finally paid the price, more than 30 years after he first shed innocent blood. His execution closed the books on more than a dozen rape-murders committed while he was on parole.

We don't need the death penalty.

 

[Toronado3800]

I just found this article on criminals who were spared the death penalty, who then went on to rape and murder again and again...

This is why I support the death penalty.....it makes sure that no other innocent victims are created by foolish mercy of unaffected bureaucrats...

Mcduff is just one of the monsters covered in the story, and the victims seem endless...

Of Junkie Justices and Evolving Indecency - American Greatness

Fort Worth, Texas, 1966: Teenagers Mark Dunnam, Robert Brand, and Edna Sullivan were hanging out one evening at a neighborhood ballfield when Kenneth McDuff approached them with gun drawn. He robbed them, then forced them into the trunk of their car. “They got a good look at my face. I’ll have to kill them,” he told Roy Dale Green, a friend who was tagging along with him. He drove his victims out into the country, killed the boys by shooting them in the face, then raped the girl, had his buddy rape her, raped her again, and finally threw her down and pressed a broomstick against her throat until her neck broke. His accomplice, horrified and remorseful, walked into a police station and ratted him out the next day..............

Austin, Texas, 1991: Colleen Reed, a young accountant, was hosing down her car one night at a self-service car wash when Kenneth McDuff lunged into her wash bay and dragged her to his car in the next bay over . . .


Wait a minute! Is that the same Kenneth McDuff who killed those kids in 1966?
------

“Don’t Be Like Pontius Pilate”

We now rejoin Kenneth McDuff and Colleen Reed. Saved from the electric chair by the Supreme Court, and granted parole because of a federal judge’s order to ease prison crowding, McDuff killed Reed five days after Christmas 1991. Her bones weren’t found until 1998; McDuff was convicted of her murder on the testimony of Alva Hank Worley, like Roy Green in 1966 a compliant accomplice, who was out cruising Austin with McDuff that night.

Worley had a child of his own, a girl of 14, and when detectives looking for McDuff questioned him and appealed to his paternal feelings, Worley broke down. He actually started screaming. The distraught man unburdened himself, telling how Reed cried, “Please, not me,” when McDuff grabbed her, how they took turns raping her on the way out of town, and how McDuff asked to borrow a shovel as he dropped Worley off at his house, saying, “I’m going to use her up.”

A few weeks after that, McDuff abducted Melissa Ann Northrup, a 22-year-old pregnant mother of two, from the Waco convenience store where they both worked. Her body was found two months later in a gravel pit near Dallas. This case got McDuff on “America’s Most Wanted,” which led to his arrest and trial in both the Northrup and Reed deaths.

During his trial in Waco, McDuff’s defense attorneys urged jurors not to be like Pontius Pilate, who “caved in to public demand” and sent Jesus to the cross. The jury, unimpressed, returned McDuff to Death Row. In 1998, he finally paid the price, more than 30 years after he first shed innocent blood. His execution closed the books on more than a dozen rape-murders committed while he was on parole.

Read the article.
We don't need the death penalty.
Republicans love killing and brown people.

Sent from my SM-J727VPP using Tapatalk

I don't know about need, but to each their own. Folks who commit murder obviously don't have a problem with the death penalty so lets give it to them!

Drive your car home drunk from the bar, you obviously don't have the same value on the lives of your fellow motorists so if you wreck, you're eligible for the death penalty in my book.

The goal of ant criminal justice system is first and foremost to keep the public safe and maintain order. The death penalty does neither. Many who kill cnt stop themselves- either because of a mental defect or out of passion. Often, they do not believe that they will be caught , or have so little regard for their own life that they do not care. In some cases, they are-either consciously or not-suicidal and want to be ritualistically killed by an authority figure. For that reason, the murder rate may actually go up where the death penalty is in effect.

In addition, the death penalty only adds to the sum total of violence in society, delays closure for the families of the victims, and costs a hell of a lot more then life in prison. You say that you want revenge? Think about what your life would be like in a maxi- max with no chance of ever getting out? I for one would rather be dead.

I'll split the difference and say the death penalty doesn't do a lot as it is currently applied.

Make it a bit more random and we might be in business, or at least be a bit more fair.

Plus, I'm not kinder and gentler. Executing ppl 5 years in as I would has to save us money over housing them for several decades.

A bit more random? You mean like a lottery? It's good to see that there is so much really deep thinking going on here .

It is deep. While I don't want to remove a judge's or jury's voice in the matter I do want to inflict some equalness (my word), on the rich and privileged.

I figured more like the wheel of sentencing minus the veteran blonde spinning it. 5% of the wheel might be the Death Penalty. 20% might be life no parole, the other 75% let the judge or jury decide as the state or feds see fit.

Poor black man gets convicted of murder, he spins the wheel.

Rich athlete kills someone drunk driving and gets convicted, spin the wheel.

They're equal in the wheels eye.

 

[Lucy Hamilton]

I SUPPORT the death penalty on moral grounds, but our insane "justice" system makes it less costly to imprison someone for life. I would just as soon throw them down a rat hole and let them putrefy.

You support the death penalty on moral grounds??

Yes...moral grounds....allowing a murderer to stay alive is immoral...

Killing is immoral, and counter productive as I explained .


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No...murder is immoral, killing is sometimes the only moral option.

There is no difference between killing and murder

"There is no difference between killing and murder"

Again you display incredible ignorance about a subject. There is a difference between killing and murder, there is a legal distinction. The most important distinction between killing and murder is intent and motivation. Murder has intent and is pre-meditated and planned the perpetrator has the sole intention to take someones life, whereas killing does not have intent.

EG. You by accident crash your auto into another auto the passengers in that auto die, you have killed them, you have not murdered them.

EG. You do not like someone, you are in your auto you notice them in their auto so you DELIBERATELY crash your auto into theirs with the INTENTION of killing them, they die, you have murdered them you are guilty of murder because your act was pre-meditated and planned your act was solely on the INTENTION to cause loss of life.

Here is an article that explains the legal difference between killing and murder, the link to:

Difference Between Killing and Murder: Killing vs Murder

Here is an article that explains the legal difference between First Degree Murder, Second Degree Murder and Manslaughter, the link to:

What Is Murder? Is Murder Different From Homicide?

 

[WheelieAddict]

Certain criminals absolutely deserve the death penalty. I am against it until the false conviction rate falls to zero.

 

[jwoodie]

As usual, you are quick to state what you DON'T believe in, but slow to explain what you DO believe in. What is YOUR concept of justice?

I have been very clear about that. The fact that you are not paying attention is not my problem.

Don't you get tired of dodging questions?

 

[jwoodie]

P.S. Your assertion that life imprisonment is worse than death is ridiculous. Why do defendants engage in endless death penalty appeals if this is true?

It is instinctual to try to save yourself. That does not change the fact t that their life will be hell.

Don't you get tired of dodging questions?

 

[oldsoul]

You claim that you want arguments based on FACT and demonstrable evidence. And then you post this? Reincarnation? You cannot seriously be arguing against the death penalty on the basis of an unproven (indeed unprovable) THEORY, can you? Also, you do not address the FACT that no dead person has EVER committed ANY crime, let alone a capital crime.

Oh Christ! Seriously? You're going off on me over mentioning reincarnation? I did not say that I believed in it ( although I do not discount it) It was kind of a whimsical thing actually but you jumped on it to avoid any meaningful rebuttal to the actual reasons that I have given or opposing the death penalty.

Wel, thanks for clearing THAT up. I was unsure as to why I did that. Other than the FACT that you claim to want a discussion based on demonstrable evidence, then bring up reincarnation. Well, at least we know you are consistent. LOL

 

[oldsoul]

My stance on the death penalty? Keep it. However, it should REQUIRE the highest standard of PROOF. Multiple CREDIBLE witnesses, confession, irrefutable evidence (ie. video of the crime), etc. As far as whether or not it is a deterrent, I don't really care. Anyone who is willing to take a life (with the exception of defence of self or others) is not someone I am willing to allow in society (imprisoned or not). The ONLY way to ensure someone does not commit such a heinous crime as premeditated murder is to end their life.

Yes, I agree that it should require the highest standard of PROOF. Multiple CREDIBLE witnesses, confession, irrefutable evidence. . But even then mistakes could be made, witnesses could lie or prosecutors could engage in misconduct.

You don't care if it is a deterrent? That is sad and disturbing. Killing them is not the only way to ensure that they will not murder again. You're just another blood thirsty radical law and order conservative that totally disregards the damage that the death penalty does to the moral fabric of society and the fact that it adds to the sum total of violence.

Yes, I agree that it should require the highest standard of PROOF. Multiple CREDIBLE witnesses, confession, irrefutable evidence. . But even then mistakes could be made, witnesses could lie or prosecutors could engage in misconduct.

True, that is possible. It is also possible that none of this matters because the world will end tomorrow. So, your argument is that we should do away with the death penalty because mistakes COULD be made. Good to know. Unfortunately, for you, the stats dont work in your favor.
" 4.1 percent of defendants who are sentenced to death in the United States are later shown to be innocent..." from the Washington Post. The staggering number of wrongful convictions in America
So, what happened to cause this?

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/images/Wrongful_Convictions_Contributing_Factors
Hum...
So, what about those who are released after "paying their debt" to society?

http://www.dc.state.fl.us/pub/recidivism/2014/RecidivismPrimaryOffense.jpg
Seems as though you have som 'splainin' to do.

You don't care if it is a deterrent? That is sad and disturbing. Killing them is not the only way to ensure that they will not murder again. You're just another blood thirsty radical law and order conservative that totally disregards the damage that the death penalty does to the moral fabric of society and the fact that it adds to the sum total of violence.

Again, thank you for clearing that up. I didn't realise I was so "blood thirsty". I thought my stance was based on FACT. My mistake. As for ensuring they do not murder again, there are only two ways. Solitary confinement for the rest of their life (not sure the SCOTUS would approve of that), and death penalty. If you have another way (short of removing limbs), please, enlighten me.

 

[Rando Caucasian]

State has no right to take a life. No bullshit.
The minute you think the state has some sort of authority to take a life, you just committed suicide.

 

[Meathead]

I just found this article on criminals who were spared the death penalty, who then went on to rape and murder again and again...

This is why I support the death penalty.....it makes sure that no other innocent victims are created by foolish mercy of unaffected bureaucrats...

Mcduff is just one of the monsters covered in the story, and the victims seem endless...

Of Junkie Justices and Evolving Indecency - American Greatness

Fort Worth, Texas, 1966: Teenagers Mark Dunnam, Robert Brand, and Edna Sullivan were hanging out one evening at a neighborhood ballfield when Kenneth McDuff approached them with gun drawn. He robbed them, then forced them into the trunk of their car. “They got a good look at my face. I’ll have to kill them,” he told Roy Dale Green, a friend who was tagging along with him. He drove his victims out into the country, killed the boys by shooting them in the face, then raped the girl, had his buddy rape her, raped her again, and finally threw her down and pressed a broomstick against her throat until her neck broke. His accomplice, horrified and remorseful, walked into a police station and ratted him out the next day..............

Austin, Texas, 1991: Colleen Reed, a young accountant, was hosing down her car one night at a self-service car wash when Kenneth McDuff lunged into her wash bay and dragged her to his car in the next bay over . . .


Wait a minute! Is that the same Kenneth McDuff who killed those kids in 1966?
------

“Don’t Be Like Pontius Pilate”

We now rejoin Kenneth McDuff and Colleen Reed. Saved from the electric chair by the Supreme Court, and granted parole because of a federal judge’s order to ease prison crowding, McDuff killed Reed five days after Christmas 1991. Her bones weren’t found until 1998; McDuff was convicted of her murder on the testimony of Alva Hank Worley, like Roy Green in 1966 a compliant accomplice, who was out cruising Austin with McDuff that night.

Worley had a child of his own, a girl of 14, and when detectives looking for McDuff questioned him and appealed to his paternal feelings, Worley broke down. He actually started screaming. The distraught man unburdened himself, telling how Reed cried, “Please, not me,” when McDuff grabbed her, how they took turns raping her on the way out of town, and how McDuff asked to borrow a shovel as he dropped Worley off at his house, saying, “I’m going to use her up.”

A few weeks after that, McDuff abducted Melissa Ann Northrup, a 22-year-old pregnant mother of two, from the Waco convenience store where they both worked. Her body was found two months later in a gravel pit near Dallas. This case got McDuff on “America’s Most Wanted,” which led to his arrest and trial in both the Northrup and Reed deaths.

During his trial in Waco, McDuff’s defense attorneys urged jurors not to be like Pontius Pilate, who “caved in to public demand” and sent Jesus to the cross. The jury, unimpressed, returned McDuff to Death Row. In 1998, he finally paid the price, more than 30 years after he first shed innocent blood. His execution closed the books on more than a dozen rape-murders committed while he was on parole.

I support the death penalty for exactly the same reason I flush toilets.

 

[candycorn]

The real problem was that effing judge that let the guy out of prison. How many people have erroneously been put to death via the death penalty? Every once in awhile we hear of a case where we find out that some person has been wrongfully locked up for 30 effing years, had we executed the person we would have put to death the wrong person. Personally, I don't think as a society we should take that chance. Instead, we need to make sure people like McDuff never get out of prison.

Not sure what the sourcing for it is but last night I was watching the story about Darlie Routier--suburban mom who was convicted of killing two of her kids. Anyway, on Death Row...on average about 5 inmates per year are found to have been innocent. Not recently convicted people...these are the condemned and 5 per year are set free due to new evidence, confessions, etc... Again, I don't know where that stat comes from but they announce it each week.

Attached is a comprehensive list. 162 have been freed from DEATH ROW....

Innocence: List of Those Freed From Death Row | Death Penalty Information Center

 

[2aguy]

State has no right to take a life. No bullshit.
The minute you think the state has some sort of authority to take a life, you just committed suicide.

But as one famous conservative William F. Buckley said, the state can engage in kidnapping and you are fine with that? Locking up criminals is legal kidnapping, should that end...